Hot Office Gossip: Are Phyllis and Erin...?!

Now that we know how Steve Carell will leave The Office — in this week’s episode, Michael left Scranton for Boulder and a new life with fiancee Holly — it’s time to latch onto a new burning question.

Sure, there’s the matter of who will ultimately succeed Michael as boss, seeing as Deangelo seems set to implode at any moment. But Carell’s final episode may have also planted a seed for a new mystery — a maternity bombshell — by hinting that Phyllis and Erin are mother and daughter.

EXHIBIT A: Early into the episode, Michael announced that he had a secret to share about Phyllis, one that he had held for “over 20 years,” from back in their high school days. After Michael benignly revealed to the staff that Phyllis was “cute” as a teen, she later fessed up to the docu crew, “I thought he knew about the baby I gave away.”

EXHIBIT B: Later in the episode, Erin — who in Season 6 revealed that she grew up in foster care — said to Michael during a confab about the Gabe/Andy sitch, “I wish I knew who my birth mother was, so she could just tell me who to choose.”

EXHIBIT C: Office EP Greg Daniels recently told EW.com that within Carell’s final episode, “A tiny mystery story — which I’m not sure anyone’s going to catch and will come out a few episodes from now — is being set up.”

And EXHIBIT D: Phyllis and Erin were literally, physically juxtaposed during the conference room gathering, even mimicking each other’s tilt of the head (as more than a few Office gossips have commented):

What do you think, is The Office planning to reunite mother and child next season? Oh, and is Gabe totally the Scranton Strangler or what?!